23 October 2013

The good folk at I Like Looking Like Other People - who are in the business of celebrating that awkward moment at work when you realise you're wearing pretty much the same thing as someone else - reveal we are not alone. We give a great big two thumbs up to your excellent tumblr.*

* For a while we were curious about why Ffion and Terry are holding a pumpkin - then we remembered... (Beware: swears.)

18 October 2013

We should just institute a uniform and be done with it. Now... I wonder what that should look like...?

2) Neil Gaiman says fiction is a gateway drug. We reckon if you mainline Neil Gaiman, you'll be on the way to a full-blown
fiction addiction. Eeeexcellent.

3) You know we love Our Colleague Jarvis Cocker. Well here he is reading Seamus Heaney's poem 'Digging'. This Onion spent
most of Year Twelve studying Seamus Heaney, and studying Jarvis Cocker
- so this is something of a ... moment.

08 October 2013

This, O my Best Beloved, is a story - a new and a wonderful story - a story
quite different from the other stories - a story of co-operation.

We tend to think of book-writing as a solo occupation. One writer, head
exploding with ideas. One writer, alone with a blank page. One writer, huddled
over their typewriter [Macbook Air], in a drafty garret [comfortable study],
looking out over Paris [Preston], their housekeeper [husband] putting plates of
cheese sandwiches [cheese sandwiches] through the door in a desperate attempt to
sustain the lonely genius.

Well, sometimes that's true (especially the Paris bit), but sometimes books
are a much more collaborative effort. Sometimes it takes brains sparking off
each other to create the magic.

They often tell you in writing classes - write about something you love.
Well, three things I love are:

guinea pigs,

detective stories,

and the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

I have always loved guinea pigs. The first book I published for children
was about a guinea pig, and they have scampered into several of my other books
since. My love of detective stories also began in childhood, and it's been a
long-term ambition to write one myself. Buenos Aires, admittedly, is a love
that appeared later in life. My husband grew up there, so we have returned to
visit several times over the years, and what a grand, intense and beautiful city
it is. And of course, guinea pigs do come from South America...

But how did these three loves find each other?

Usually I sit quietly at home thinking of things to write, but in this
case, publisher Anna MacFarlane suggested that she, I and illustrator Terry
Denton get together one day and see if we might come up with an idea for a
series of books that combined puzzles and problem-solving with the pleasures of
character and narrative.

We sat and ate and drank and chatted and wondered and thought aloud,
and Terry drew and doodled, and made us laugh (of course). And eventually, in
one of those mysteries of creation, by the end of the day there was Coco, head
poised, looking nervously about the room for possible clues for the most
improbable of crimes...

-------------------------------

Three books later, Coco and Alberta, Ursula, Terry and Anna have proved
themselves a cracking good team.

17 September 2013

In the High and Far-Off Times, O Best Beloved, the Publisher had no
stories. But she had a friend, a Literary Agent. And so that was all right, Best
Beloved. Do you see?

Sometimes, publishing is like trying to find your true love at a bar in the
CBD on a Friday night. There are a lot of fish in the sea, and not all of them
are going to *ahem* meet your exacting criteria. So, to narrow the field and
increase their chances of finding their one true love/the perfect book, publishers
often look to a matchmaker - otherwise known as a literary agent.

Agents know their clients' work, obviously, but one of their other great
skills is building deep and lasting relationships with publishers and editors,
and knowing exactly which book and author might suit which publisher. If a
literary agent you trust sets you up, chances are you'll be going home
together.*

Publisher Anna McFarlane remembers one such match-made-in-heaven:My first day at Allen & Unwin was 20 July 2010. And while I was
excited, I was also discombobulated. I had a desk, a print-out of procedures, a
phone, a wall of bookshelves without any books in it, and an email address (although only one email -- the subject being
'Testing your email'). I was a
blank slate and even though I was happy, Bad Thoughts were starting to pop into
my head. Was this the right thing to be doing? Could I still publish books?
Would I ever fall in love with a manuscript again? It was all rather
nerve-wracking.

But at 1:40pm on that very first day, I received my (second ever) email,
subject: 'New Book'.

-----------

Hello Anna

Welcome to your new home!! I know that today is your first day and you
probably haven't even found the mail room yet (first door on the left) but
wanted this to be the first thing I send you.

-----------

It was from Curtis Brown agent and MD Fiona Inglis and the 'this' was a new
novel by the award-winning writer Andrew McGahan. Rather surprisingly to all
involved (even him), Andrew had written a young-adult novel set on the high seas
in a strange-but-familiar world. Luckily, I was able to read it straight away
(empty inbox, after all) and very quickly I was captivated by the Great Ocean
and the splendor of those tall ships, and longed to read more about Dow's
journey from timber cutter to great mariner.Reading the manuscript was a beautiful experience, not just because I was
being transported by the story to a world of wild storms, terrible beauty and
that dangerous and mysterious ocean, but also because those Bad Thoughts had
disappeared.

It was day one and I had fallen in love with a manuscript. I desperately
wanted to publish it. And (ironically if you know the story, which questions the
very concept of destiny, and challenges the idea of portents and superstitions)
it was also a sign that this was indeed the right thing to be doing.

And there you have it. True love fostered, fears allayed and zeal renewed,
all without Anna needing to leave her shiny** new desk.

Thank you, Fiona - and thank you to all the other agents who help us to
find stories we love and authors we adore.

10 September 2013

Before the Chapter Books and the Bind Ups and the Box Sets, O my Best
Beloved, came the Time of the Very Beginnings.

When an author brings a work to us they often imagine it in a particular shape or form. But part of the publisher's job is to know the market, to understand the material, and to see possibilities that the author or illustrator never even considered. Often, the author's initial vision is very close to the final product. But sometimes, with time and discussion and consultation it grows (or metamorphoses) into something else entirely.

You might think of the editorial process as a bit like helping the sculptor to find David in the block of marble. 'Chip that nose a bit. A bit more. A bit more. Perfect!' And mostly, that's true.

But it can also be about thinking differently about what's already there: 'You've been going for David, but actually we think you've made a very handsome Daniel.'*

Other times it's about plucking up your courage and saying, 'Look, Michaelangelo, I don't think marble is your medium; have you considered watercolours?'

In the case of Tashi - Anna and Barbara Fienberg's much-loved hero - it was perhaps a bit like encouraging a minnow, to grow to a school of fish, to become a blue whale - while still being Tashi all the time.Anna Fienberg conceived the original Tashi story as a picture-book text. It had so many appealing qualities: a rich friendship between boy and friend (or alter ego); a teasing relationship between boy and father; a fresh take on the 'tall tale'; a fearless blend of European and Asian folk story traditions; larger-than-life villains; an irrepressible hero living by his wits (brain not brawn always triumphs); action aplenty; exotic landscapes; and scope for cinematic pictures…

And Kim Gamble was the perfect illustrator, given his previous collaborations with Anna, his talent for characterisation and his lovingly intricate scenery.

But the manuscript was too long for a standard picture book, and the writing too good to cut.

Rosalind Price, head of children's publishing at Allen & Unwin at the time, knew there was a need for short, engaging 'chapter books' for young readers and nearly-readers. So instead of chopping back the text, she said 'write another story!' We chose a slim, economical paperback novel format, with two stories and lots of black-and-white illustrations. It was hard to forego Kim's delicious watercolours, but his detailed pencil drawings have their own intimate appeal, and leave room for the reader to imagine the world of the stories. And suddenly there was scope for all the further adventures that Anna wanted to explore!

That first little Tashi book led to 18 years (so far) of publishing Tashi. There have been sixteen chapter books, an activity books, a few bind-ups, and a couple of box sets.In 2004, Tashi finally appeared in the form that Anna had originally envisioned - in the beautiful full-colour picture book There Once Was a Boy Called Tashi. This November, Tashi goes picture book again in Once Tashi Met a Dragon, which features a beautiful - but very hard to photograph - sparkly dragon on the cover.

So in some ways, Tashi has come full circle. But he's also branching out into brave new worlds. Next year, Flying Bark Productions and ABC TV will let loose Tashi and Jack and Lotus Blossum in animated form!

But whatever the format, with or without the sparkles and glitter, no matter how fat or how skinny the book, at the core of Tashi are the rich, warm, imaginative characters and stories that Anna and Barbara Fienberg and Kim Gamble created.

Our original marketing copy included the line 'Tashi tells the best stories …', and 18 years later that line still appears on almost all of the book jackets, and in much of our marketing material. Because he does; Tashi tells the best stories.

09 September 2013

For our 25th
anniversary we've been sharing the Origin stories of the Onions. We walked a
lot of different paths to the House of Onion, some smooth, some thorny and
some with a higher-than-expected number of door-to-door encyclopedia sales.*

But what of the books themselves? How do we find our authors and our
books - or how do they find us?

Pure and simple: how do the books become?

Well, we must begin with the confession that, as Algernon Moncrieff so tartly put it, 'the truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would
be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete
impossibility!'

Sometimes they come to us.

Sometimes we go to them.

Sometimes they arrive fully formed.

Sometimes the gestation is long, and the incarnations are many.

Sometimes, we feel like Kipling's whale,
opening its throat and swallowing all the stories in the world.**

06 August 2013

On Sunday at the Little Bookroom in Carlton, Ann James launched Kirsty
Murray's enchanting time-slip novel The Four Seasons of Lucy McKenzie out
into the world. It was a lovely celebration; there was laughter, and
champagne and there was a book cake. The best of all cakes...

And to make up for the fact that public holidays are thin on the ground about
now, several Onions had the consideration to be born at this time of year, to
give us something to celebrate.

Even though she publishes books for grown-up people, Tracy is a
kindred sprit, and we will miss her very much - especially her warmth and humour
... and her willingness to go on the coffee run, even in the vilest
weather.

Tracy is moving on to exciting new things at RMIT, and we wish her the very
very best, but we're just going to sing a few more cowboy dirges and stuff our
face with cupcakes while we get used to the idea.

They came express from the kitchen of Amie Kaufman, and brought with them
love from Meagan Spooner. Amie and Meagan are the co-authors of These Broken Stars, which we are super
super excited to be publishing in December this year, partly because we can use
three of our favourite words to describe it: Thriller, Romance and
Science-fiction.****

We've decided we are keeping them. Meagan and Amie, that is. The brownies
are alllll gone.

Caramello koalas.

Inside the brownies.

All in all, it's been a very good day.

* Sorry everyone outside Melbourne, this is an inner-city elite gag.

** No, this is not short for Her Royal.

*** We know about the cutting edge because LB showed us the
colour-photocopied, hand-cut, hand-assembled, recycled paper envelopes she made
for booksellers circa 1999. CUTTING EDGE! (And very pretty.)

**** Okay - maybe we wouldn't normally hyphenate science fiction unless
it was being an adjective, but then it would have been four words and that
didn't scan so well. Editor's prerogative.

After managing a bookshop for four years I concluded that retail wasn't
for me and that I wanted to try publishing. I decided the places to start were
Allen & Unwin or Random House - purely based on the books they published and
the fact they were in Sydney. As good a logic as any!

Allen & Unwin were then the distributors of Dava Sobel and Annie
Proulx - authors I loved reading and recommending - and had published some of
the Australian history and sociology titles I'd been inspired by at uni. And
they had two jobs available - one in the Sales Department and one in
Marketing/Product Management.

My first interview was with Robert Gorman* and
he asked if I wanted to be an editor (I didn't). I'd read somewhere that being
positive about where a company was located was a good thing in an interview so I
was possibly too effusive about the lovely trees on Atchison Street and the
proximity to cafes and a bookshop. I didn't get that job - Caitlin Withey did,
and she, like me, is still at A&U today.

Liane Poulton was the A&U sales rep who called on the bookshop
where I worked. She was wonderful and eccentric and a wildlife warrior. And also
famously prone to injury. She was very funny, passionate about books and the
book business, and bought me coffees and talked inappropriately loudly in the
local cafe until I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cringe. She got my vote for
Sydney Rep of the Year every year.

And I suspect she had a role in the outcome of my next - successful -
interview at A&U, which was with Paul Donovan. I knew from experience that
Liane had that skill of talking at you till you gave in, and I found out several
years after the fact that she had cornered Paul in his office and talked at him
about giving me a job. So I'm still not sure to what degree my employment was
due to my own talents and to what degree it was about Paul buying himself a
quiet life. But regardless, I'm grateful to both Liane and Paul.**

I started on an 8-month maternity-leave position; 15 years later I'm
still here.

The original role was an odd combination of jobs: managing A&U's
relationship with ABC Books & Audio (which we distributed at the time), as
well as ABC Retail. Coordinating Special Sales. And Children's Marketing. I
landed in the Children's Department a little by accident because it happened to
be the job that was going - and I had enjoyed reading and recommending
children's books as part of my bookselling role. I'd learned 'how to do it' by
talking to kids who came into the store, reading the books, remembering what I
had liked as a kid and why, listening to more experienced booksellers and
soaking up any information I could get from my sales reps.

That first year the A&U local children's list was about 28 books
compared to the 85 or so we do each year now, and marketing was almost entirely
to bookshops with a little bit of school liaison. One of my first tasks was to
make a poster for the Minton books by Anna Fienberg and Kim Gamble which we
originally published in 1999 and then repackaged in a brand new format in 2008 . There was a launch event at a school near the bookshop I'd worked in, with a
Minton cake, and the Year 6 girls made up a 'Go, Minton, Go' cheer performed
with pompoms.

As well as working on our own list, I spent hours talking to David
Francis, then Children's Publisher at ABC Books, often quite late into the
evening, phone glued to my left ear, legs kicking out under my big old brown
veneer desk. It was answering questions from David and his colleagues and
solving their issues that forced me to develop my understanding of the market.
And it was through the ABC that I learned how you can find a different market
for a book by changing its format, and how to market both author-led titles, and
those that weren't - Bananas in Pyjamas, The Play School Useful Book.

I also worked on the Bloomsbury children's list, at first under the
guidance of Miranda Van Asch and increasingly on my own. Bloomsbury were kicking
up a gear at the time, and publishing wonderful fiction including Sharon Creech's Love That Dog, Celia Rees's Witch Child and
the extraordinary, and still best-selling, Holes by Louis Sachar. I learned the value of passion and word-of-mouth and how to start
a chain of enthusiasm from inside the company.

From the beginning, A&U, and Paul in particular, put a huge amount of
trust in me, allowing me to take on more responsibilities and run with new
ideas. My role changed, our list and the Bloomsbury list grew, marketing
strategies developed over time - and soon I had to shed some responsibilities in
favour of others.

I'd started at A&U in 1998 around the time of the release of the
second Harry Potter book, and
during the 2000s, as that series became a phenomenon, large chunks of my days,
evenings, weekends - life - were consumed by working on it while the rest of my
job somehow went on. My work during 'The Harry Years' could be a blog post or
three of its own, but suffice to say it was a unique project and an incredible
opportunity, and not a week goes by that I don't use something I learned at that
time in my current role.

And nine years later, when the final Harry Potter book was
published, my role at A&U was focused entirely on children's books.

And now I oversee all our Children's publishing, marketing and
distribution activities. Most of the time I work a suburb away from the trees of
Atchison St in A&U's 'new' offices, with regular trips to Melbourne where
more than half the team are based. My desk is modern grey rather than brown
veneer; there are more contracts on it than design briefs for posters, and I'm
more likely to create a spreadsheet than a promotional flyer. But I still have
the plant that I inherited from my predecessor in that triple ABC/special
sales/children's role all those years ago.

And it's still all about the books we publish, and making sure they reach
and resonate with readers of all ages.

- Liz Bray, Children's Books Director

* RG was then A&U's Sales Manager. These days after moving to and
returning from HarperCollins, he's our CEO. ** Very sadly, Liane died a few
years later.

19 June 2013

In
December 1994 - so long ago! - I went to a Little Ark Christmas party where the publisher, Rosalind Price, casually mentioned that she was on the
lookout for an editor. Little Ark was the children's books imprint Rosalind had established at Allen & Unwin. She said, 'Whoever it is, they've got to have the right
sensibility. After all, I'll be spending more time with this person each day
than I do with my husband!'

I'd
been freelancing and mothering for fifteen years and longed for something different;
moreover, I had been acquainted with Rosalind since the 1970s and knew her
quality.

The
interview was friendly, but not an unmitigated success and, after a week of
silence, I feared the worst. I phoned Rosalind and rashly said, 'I know
we could work together, I just know it!' and offered to bribe her with pictures
- by sending her my favourite postcards as a starting point for a second
interview. She laughed, and said would I at least like to work with her on a
three-month trial, to keep things moving while she went to the Bologna Children's Book Fair. I said yes.

Among
the books being published at the time were Margo Lanagan's The Best Thing, which I had done a reader's report on months earlier and found
extraordinary; various non-fiction titles in the True Stories series; John
Nicholson's The First Fleet; Natalie Jane Prior's detective story
The Paw in Brazil, illustrated by Terry Denton. I revelled in the
variety, the creative collaboration with Rosalind, and the chance to engage with
authors (a rarity out there in freelance world).

Then
Sue Flockhart came in for an
interview. Rosalind told me that whatever decision she made about Sue
would not affect any decision she made about me, but I didn't believe her, and
assumed that at the end of my three-month trial, I'd be out. At about this time I
was offered an editorial job at Penguin. At the second interview with one of the
senior people it was suggested I could soon be hobnobbing with famous authors
from the adult book world and surfing the net (then a novelty) in a world-class
multinational company; why would I even think of working in the narrow world of books for children?

During
these negotiations Rosalind announced that she'd loved working with me and would
like to offer me a permanent job at Little Ark. I explained about Penguin, and
went away to agonise. The nimble, creative small outfit in the inner city
appealed more - as did the chance to work with Rosalind - but would a period in
the Penguin empire be wiser in the long run? Would I paint myself into a corner
if I specialised in children's books?

That
was eighteen years ago, and I am still here, and since then I have often had cause to bless the day I
tried to bribe Rosalind Price.

Sarah wearing a possum-skin cloak (used by John Danalis in talks at schools)

12 June 2013

I find it hard, almost impossible, to explain how I ended up in
children’s books because no matter how I try to tell the story, the road from
being a some-time childcare worker, a disenchanted actor and Dramatic Arts
graduate living in Adelaide, to that of a publisher of children’s books living
in Sydney is not linear. In fact, it seems kind of improbable when I look at it
on paper, although the reality of my groaning book shelves, overflowing inbox
and occasional parking tickets, reminds me that, yes, it is indeed true. That
earnest and vocationally challenged person in Adelaide did indeed finally find
her way into the job she wanted.

The first person to ever interview me for a publishing job was incredibly
influential. I didn’t get the job, but my interviewer was kind and passionate
about what she did, and it ignited a real passion in me to work in the industry.

The second job I applied for was at Allen & Unwin’s Melbourne
office as an editorial assistant, assisting the non-fiction adult books
publisher. I was keen for a job in children’s books, but any job in the industry
would have made me happy. At the same time I applied for a position as a junior
trainee assistant children’s book editor in Sydney. I felt the Sydney position
was unlikely and I anticipated that I would be moving to Melbourne to be an
editorial assistant.

But I did get the job as a trainee editor - my first job in publishing.
And so, I thought it was goodbye to Allen & Unwin and off I set to make my
home in Sydney and my career at HarperCollins Publishers.

I spent five interesting years at HarperCollins learning to be an
editor and then ten exciting years at Pan Macmillan where I ended up as the
publisher of children’s books. It seems ridiculous to summarise those years so
swiftly here, because they were fantastic and hugely effecting, however, even
though I loved my job, the Dramatic Arts graduate still lurked and when the
opportunity to work for an independent film production company arose, I took the
leap. I spent the next two years helping produce an animated short, as well as
developing other projects, all of which was a great experience.

Me, producer Garth Nix & writer, director and animator Jonathan Nix at the
2011 IF Award ceremony. The Missing Key won Best Short Animation.

But as the film neared completion, my publishing instincts started
twitching again. I was irresistibly drawn back to the world of books, but not
sure where I should go or where I could work.

Then, in 2010, at a party during Adelaide Writer’s Week, I met
A&U’s chairman Patrick Gallagher. Patrick and I discussed all matters of
publishing and children’s books, though in my mind it was just an enjoyable
conversation – the actual prospect of me joining Allen & Unwin didn’t seem
possible.

A few weeks’ later, after more pleasant phone calls and lovely meetings
with Robert Gorman and Liz Bray, the impossible was starting to feel perhaps
possible. And I liked these people, this company – but would they want a
children’s publisher in Sydney when the rest of the publishing and editorial
children’s team was in Melbourne? And would they want me?

During yet another conversation, the possibility of working for Allen
& Unwin finally felt real and I was assured that it definitely could work –
there could be a publisher based in Sydney with regular meetings in Melbourne...
And I was thinking, ‘Wow, this job sounds awesome, just what I’m looking for,
with this great company, and terrific people, and that idea I have about a book,
maybe I can look into it …’ And I was so busy thinking about all of this, I kind
of missed the moment when I was actually asked if I was interested. Please don’t
tell anyone that my pause on that day in April 2010 wasn’t strategic, I wasn’t
playing hard to get. In fact, I was lucky the question was repeated and I was
able to answer: ‘Yes.’

So after seventeen years, numerous publishing industry positions, two
multi-national companies and a side-trip into independent film production, I
finally work at Allen & Unwin. I count myself incredibly lucky to be working
with such a wonderful team, which, by the way, includes the very first person
ever to interview me.

05 June 2013

When I was at school I loved to read, liked writing and hated maths. At uni
I did a Bachelor of Media in Writing, which luckily required no maths skills
whatsoever. While I was studying I had the idea that I’d like to work as a
journalist so I did some work experience at newspapers and magazines, but when I
graduated there weren’t any full-time jobs in journalism so I accepted a job as
a marketing and publicity co-ordinator with a local book distributor. I learnt a
huge amount while I was there and discovered that the publicity side of working
on the books was what I enjoyed most. My boss had previously worked at Allen
& Unwin and after hearing her talk about A&U, I thought that might be
somewhere I’d like to work one day.

After two years at the book distributor I decided I wanted a change, and I
left for London with a working visa and not nearly enough warm clothes. When I
arrived I was fortunate enough to be offered a job as a publicist for a small
publisher based in London. Before I started with the publisher I went to the
London Book Fair as a volunteer. I still remember how big it felt when I walked
through the doors, and how insignificant I felt in comparison. I had a great
time there and met some lovely people, the most lovely of all being Bridget
Shine, the Director of the Independent Publisher’s Guild, who was endlessly
patient and kind.

I lived in London for a year and then decided I missed the sun and blue sky
too much to stay another year. So I travelled around Europe a little before I
moved back to Sydney where I was offered a job as a publicist at HarperCollins
on a twelve-month maternity-cover contract. As the year was coming to an end, I
applied for a job as the Children’s and Young Adult Publicist at Allen &
Unwin. I had always loved children’s books and had worked on some great
children’s and YA titles while I was at HarperCollins. Lo and behold, a happy surprise: I got the
job, and I was delighted.

I started at A&U the week of our annual sales conference and those
first few days are still a blur, but after being here for just over a year now,
I still feel as happy as I did that first week. Allen & Unwin is filled with
kind, funny, generous and supportive people who all LOVE books. The children’s
team are endlessly hard-working, kind, patient and best of all, fun! It’s been a
fantastic twelve months and I’ve worked on some amazing books with some
incredible authors – including the fabulous Libba Bray. Here we are at the recent
Sydney Writer’s Festival.

30 May 2013

I was a sporty, bookish kind of girl, and at the end of my first year of
university I realised that Accountancy was not for me. Accountancy was so not
for me that I had to leave the state.

So I moved to Sydney. The only qualifications
I had were one year of an abandoned Accountancy degree and a one-week bartending
course. Despite this lack of experience, I quickly secured three waitressing
jobs. One at a restaurant in St Leonards where I quit before the end of the
first shift, one at the brand new Powerhouse Museum where I spilled a tray of
champagne all over myself on opening night, and one at the Pitt Street Pizza Hut
where the pay was $4.25 an hour. The actual bonuses were the occasional free
pizza and stolen bacon bits from the salad bar, and the unexpected bonus
happened only once, when I left work and found myself outside Town Hall Station
accidentally face-to-face with the Queen. There was a barricade between me and her
majesty, but it was flimsy.

After three months I asked for a raise and when denied it, I quit in order
to sell encyclopedias door-to-door in Queensland. Yes. Encyclopedias.
Door-to-door. In Queensland. My friends tried to talk me out of it. But I was
determined. I'd never been to Queensland. And encyclopedias were books, right? I
started in Ipswich, then went to Toowoomba, then Roma, then Chinchilla, Dalby,
Kingaroy, Gimpy, Noosa, Maryborough, Childers, Bunderberg, Rockhampton, Mackay,
Townsville, Innisfail, Cairns, Port Douglas, then back down to Gladstone. We
were young and reckless and it was Queensland and we had adventures. Many
adventures. But three months was enough, so in Gladstone I boarded a late-night
bus bound for Sydney and wept quietly every time 'Better Be Home Soon' played
over the coach stereo. Crowded House was on repeat for the entire 17-hour trip.
Quite a lot of quiet weeping.

So, seeking less adventure, I took a job in the watch department of a
Prouds Jewellery store. We sold Longines. We sold Seiko. We sold Swatches.
Sometimes there were sailors. There were time-cards and we had to clock in and
clock out. They were not my people.

When I returned to Melbourne, most of my friends were finishing degrees and
taking their first 'career' jobs. I knew that I didn't want to be an accountant,
and I didn't want to work in hospitality, and I didn't want to work in retail.
But what did I want? I just wanted to read books and talk about them and that
wasn't a job, was it? Oh? Publishing.

Investigations revealed that the trick to getting a job in publishing was
to know someone who could help get one's foot in the door at a publishing house.
But I didn't know what a publishing house was, and I didn't know anyone who
worked in publishing, and I didn't have any idea how to even find the door, let
alone get a foot in it.

Eventually I went for a job as typesetter (even though I didn't know what
typesetting was) at a company that designed and printed advertising material. I
didn't get the typesetting job because most people who applied were already
doing a typesetting apprenticeship. But unexpectedly I did get a job as a
proofreader. I had no proofreading experience and I suspect I only landed the
job because the HR manager was sick that day and the Boss interviewed me and we
talked about books and he was impressed that I had lasted a whole year in
accountancy - he'd only lasted six weeks.

I was incredibly fortunate to work with three tremendously knowledgeable
professional proofreaders who taught me many wonderful things about words and
how to proofread them, and proofreading marks and layout and typography and
fonts - and that the dictionary was my very best friend.

After a year though, I remembered that I really really wanted to go to
university. I wanted to go to university because I wanted to learn all the
things. I wanted to go to university because I wanted my parents to be proud of
me. I wanted to go to university because the walls of the Old Arts building were
so solid and impressive and the grass on the South Lawn was so green and
inviting. I wanted to go to university because that meant having a student card
- so everything would be cheaper.

And I knew a little bit more about the world by then. Many of my friends
had done Arts degrees, and I realised that I was foolish not to have done Arts
the first time around. Why had I done Accountancy instead of Arts? Who ever
knows. Well, I know, but I'm not telling. Okay, I'll whisper it. I
didn't know what Arts was.I thought it was painting.
There, so now the secret is out. Let us not speak of it again. After all, I
learned A LOT selling encyclopedias and that probably would never have happened
if I had chosen Arts over Accountancy.

I was excited about my first day of classes. I knew in my heart that the
other Arts students would be my people. I was so excited that I missed my first
two lectures because I was overcome with nerves and vomiting on the banks of the
Yarra River. My boyfriend tried to calm me down enough to stop the vomiting but
when that failed, he went to my first two lectures for me. And took notes.

Oh how I loved studying Arts. I loved it. And then, three years later it
was finished, but I didn't want it to be finished so I enrolled in an Honours
degree. And I tried very hard to do it full time. I really tried, but I needed
money and found it was easier to survive if I studied part-time and worked the
night shift as a ward assistant in the delivery suite at the Mercy Hospital.
Every night there were new babies born, there were exhausted mothers and
exuberant fathers, and there were delivery suites to clean, and delivery
trolleys to ... wrangle. I was sleep-deprived and I had a nauseous-linen
allowance, but I had enough money.

More than enough. I discovered that I had enough money to go overseas and
why not do that instead of finishing my Honours degree. No reason I could think
of. So I did. I lived in London for six months, and sailed around the Greek
Islands with five friends for two weeks, and saw the Acropolis and admired the
pebbled beaches of Nice and went to a casino in Monaco and camped in a
thunderstorm on the side of a hill in Florence and discovered that Venice was
real and got a hire-car wedged between buildings in the pedestrian precinct of
Verona and almost acquired a taste for Guinness in a lovely old wooden pub in
the south of Ireland where a Dutch couple told me I spoke very good English for
an Australian.

And then I came home. And went back to uni. And needed a job. Again. A
friend helped me secure employment in the mailroom of a law firm while I
finished my Honours year (okay, sometimes I was also the tea lady - but I
infinitely preferred the mail room with its fancy mail train system and the
whizzbang of the new photocopiers). And then I was done. Degree completed. And I
never ever in my life wanted to study again.

So there I was, a somewhat over-qualified mailroom attendant, surrounded by
lawyers. And I still didn't know anyone in publishing. I sat the public service
test and made it to the last round of interviews and might have been successful
had I not just read The First Stone by
Helen Garner. The question for the group interview was about how best to handle
a sexual-harassment complaint from a female student against a male housemaster.
I had PLENTY of ideas about that.

Then my (musician) partner thought he was interested in a job at the
Australian Music Examinations Board, but on enquiry he discovered that the
position description was not for him, so I applied for it. After all, they had a
music publishing program. Perhaps this was the door I had been looking for?
Almost, but not quite. It was a wonderful job and I worked with fabulous,
dedicated people, but it was not book publishing. Clearly.

And then one day, an acquaintance invited me to a launch of Visible
Ink. I didn't know what Visible Ink was, but I didn't have
anything else to do that day, so I went.

It turned out that Visible Inkwas the anthology of writing from the students of the RMIT Professional
Writing and Editing course.
That afternoon, in the Lounge on
Swanston Street, I truly found my people. There they were. All in one place. And
even though I had promised myself I would never ever in my life study again, I
enrolled in the RMIT course and I loved every minute of it. Every single minute.
And in the second half of my second year I did the Practical Placement subject
at a children's books publishing house.

Ten years earlier I had realised I wanted to work in publishing. Eighteen
months earlier I had found my people in a bar on Swanston Street and since then
had spent countless hours with them, talking books and writing and short stories
and poetry and ideas and editing and publishing and works-in-progress. And life
and art and the creative process. And now I was doing the first day of my work
experience placement. I stood on Gertrude Street outside Black Dog Books. I took
a deep breath. Here, finally, was the door. In I walked.

* TEN YEARS! Ten years of working in this wonderful House with so many
brilliant creators and colleagues. Ten years of being endlessly inspired,
delighted and encouraged. And incredibly proud of the wonderful books we have
produced together. Thank you all for being so extraordinarily fabulous.

And we are thrilled to bits and pieces that the winner is our very own
Susannah Chambers.

Yes! It's true. And it is the bestest news.

Named after distinguished literary editor Beatrice Davis,
and awarded biennially, the Fellowship is the 'highest national recognition and
reward for the contribution editors make to Australian writing and publishing'.
The Highest National Recognition. One million HOORAYS!

But wait, there's more. The Fellowship winner is awarded an airfare to the
USA, and living and accommodation expenses for three months to complete a
professional development research project at a range of US publishing houses.
Yes, dear readers - this means Susannah will be going to NYC! Her mission will
be to 'examine young adult editing and publishing at a time of fascinating
growth and transition'.

We Onions are bursting with pride.

Alas. We are unable to bestow our congratulations on her in person. The
Fellowship was announced in Sydney on Saturday. On Sunday, Susannah left the country. On a lovely long holiday. If she
were here, we would definitely be plying her with cake - and perhaps a small
glass of sparkling wine (or two).

So for now we must be content to send our congratulations all across the
seas, and when she returns - there will be celebrating. Much celebrating!

We think that the artistry of this cake, the colour palette and the mixed
media employed make it clear that it was made by our lovely new designer, who
henceforth shall be known as the clever Creative Type.

I left High School clueless as what to do next, after a few tries
invarious not-quite-rights jobs, I found myself working at The
Bookshop Darlinghurst.

It was soon very apparent to me that I had found my calling, being paid to
be surrounded by books, talk about books, sell books! But, The Bookshop
Darlinghurst did not sell any kids books; I would have to wait seven years
before being able to re-ignite my enthusiasm for them.

I grew up in The Bookshop Darlinghurst, and over seven years figured out
that what I really wanted to do was be a Sales Rep at Allen & Unwin. A&U
had the best books, the best reps, the best authors, the best reputation and I
felt that it was the place for me.

However, no one ever leaves A&U, so I had to wait! While I waited for a
position to come up, I asked the fabulous Sandy Weir and Michael White what I
could do to get a job at A&U. They advised me to get more experience in the
more mass market side of book selling, i.e leave my comfortable Indie world and
see the other side!

As luck would have it, Borders were opening up their first Sydney store,
and somehow I got a job as their Marketing Manager for Macquarie Centre North
Ryde (still not sure how that happened)! Going from Darlinghurst to North Ryde
was a bit of a culture shock!

While at Borders I rediscovered my love of children's books (beyond Star
Wars), I was in charge of the Kids Book Department and making sure it always
looked great, no easy task when parents used it as a babysitting service while
they shopped! The A&U list was always the best and I resolved even more that
I had to get a job there.

I was there when Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban came
out. It was so amazing to be part of this huge experience and it was a lot of fun!
Later at A&U, I got to see how much hard work Liz Bray and the team did
to get Harry out there!

Finally, someone left the A&U sales team, and I did everything I could
to get an interview and the job, and I succeeded!

Selling the kids list to these incredible, dedicated booksellers was and
remains a huge part of what I love at A&U. I have also been lucky enough to
meet some of favourite authors, David Levithan, Neil Gaiman, Margo Lanagan,
Garth Nix, and many others.

I consider myself to be an honorary part of the Children's Marketing Team
and although I love our adult books, I probably love the kids list just a little
bit more.

Ten years later I am still here, no longer a Rep, but still in sales,
working in a job I love, for a company that is everything that I thought it
would be. I am a lucky man.

I was working as a commissioning editor at Penguin Books when Rosalind Price called me. I had a wonderful meeting with her - it was so exciting. She had a copy of the groundbreaking picture book FOX on her mantelpiece, and we met at the trestle table that she had made herself in the upstairs room of the Rathdowne Street office. Allen & Unwin felt like a rush of fresh air, where creative, freewheeling, risk-taking publishing (what other kind is there, in fact?) blossomed.

I had started my publishing career as a trainee editor at Penguin in 1988 and it felt like home. I had many dear friends and strong author relationships, but I felt I was losing touch with what I loved the most - the hands on making of books. Rosalind offered me a dream job, but I wasn't ready yet to make the leap.

A couple of years later, the time was right ... I had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to start up a new children's list for a small independent publisher, Duffy & Snellgrove. That same year, 1999, I also spent three months in the US on the Beatrice Davis Editorial Fellowship - a terrifying and intoxicating experience! But on my return, after publishing the first 5 books on my fledgling Silverfish list, it became clear that Silverfish wasn't going to work out as planned. Unlike big publishers who have buffers, tiny independents need their books to sell quickly and in large numbers if they are to survive (unless they have an alternate income stream to cover the establishment phase). When it was clear that Silverfish needed another home in order to keep going, I rang Rosalind. In her kind, wise and practical way, she said, 'Do you want to come to us?' That moment was simultaneously a lifeline and a second chance.

So I started at A&U on Valentine's Day in the year 2000. Rosalind and I shared her trestle table for the first few weeks - about two feet of table surface each. I felt saved and also in debt! I wanted so much to prove myself, but really I was starting again (I even changed my name ...). Of course, it takes time to find your feet as a publisher - you have to be daring, experiment, fail and try again. It took a while, but always I felt supported by Rosalind and A&U. The working atmosphere was a revelation to me - there were no politics! We just helped each other as needed and trusted each other to do our jobs well. And there was the singing - a brilliant way of bringing the team together.

I feel blessed by having had the best publishers in the business as my mentors and am eternally grateful to them. Having worked for big, small and medium sized companies, what I value the most is the sense of community we have in the children's publishing world - all the laughing, crying, plotting and planning we do - the creativity of the authors and illustrators, editors, designers and the myriad people who make the books happen and then support them out in the world - that's what really matters, and will be our legacy.

I left high school with the very sensible
plan of making lots of money and retiring early (I was, of course, willing to vary this to
'marrying rich and not working' if the option were to present itself), so I
began my career as an auditor at a very large accounting firm. It didn't take me very long to realise that
perhaps I wasn't quite as shallow and
money hungry as I originally believed myself to be* and I handed in my notice so
I could follow my heart and do something I really cared about.

At this point I stalled. It was all very
nice to grandly declare that I wanted to do something 'that mattered' but what
did that even mean? So with nothing better to do, I continued my business
degree, supporting myself with a vast range of jobs (the most unusual being the
small stint I had as a turf layer), whilst waiting for that light-bulb moment
when my dream career would present itself to me. In a moment of desperation I
even tried a self-help book which told me to visualise how I would ideally like
to spend my time. I imagined myself sitting in a little room surrounded by books
reading all day. Upon reflection perhaps I should have taken the results a
little more seriously, but at the time I declared all self-help books to be
useless, threw it across the room and curled up with a copy of my favourite
comfort book, Pride and Prejudice
(and I admit vaguely revisiting my idea of marrying rich - oh Mr Darcy, why
don't you exist in the real world?).

In 2001 I was following the path of so
many other 20-somethings looking for meaning in life by backpacking through
Europe. In Norway I met a family member of a friend who took me to her office.
It was at a book publisher called Cappelen Damm. I stepped inside
and was overwhelmed with how much I loved it. As I was walking along softly
stroking the books and occasionally even sniffing them, it hit me that perhaps
this was the future career that I was so desperately seeking.

From then on I determinedly worked at
getting into publishing. I enrolled in a Diploma of Publishing and Editing and
subscribed to the Weekly Book Newsletter which my research told me was the bible
of the Australian Publishing world. I also read that the best way to get into
publishing was through reception, so I got a job as a receptionist in an
unrelated company to get experience.

Then began the process of applying for
any and every job that was in book publishing (there weren't many, but I applied
for them all!). My first interview was with Allen & Unwin in the Sydney
Office. I didn't get the job. But they were lovely and told me they would hold
onto my resume in case something else came up - obviously I thought they just
said that to make me feel better. Imagine my surprise when they actually did
call me I was interviewed for another job. I also didn't get that one. When I
was called in for a third role I began to suspect they were just messing with
me. But I went for it anyway, and after two interviews I was employed in the
Publicity department, which it turns out is a brilliant place to learn a lot
about publishing and be involved with all the other departments.

It didn't take me very long to realise
that it was the children's and young adult books that I really loved. So I
started unnecessarily attending the children's marketing meetings, reviewing
their books and basically doing anything I could to make sure the children's
department knew who I was. My plan worked, and when a role came up in the
children's marketing department I convinced the children's director Liz Bray
that I was the right person for the role and here I am.

*Please note I do not think that accountants are shallow or money hungry. Many of my best friends are wonderful, creative and passionate people and are also accountants, but they also didn't choose the career for the sole purpose of making money, they actually liked it.

**Hard to believe I know, but remember those ads where the accountant gets all excited when they help get you a good tax return, some people really are like that!

27 March 2013

So, tell us a little about yourself...
I didn't
believe my mother when she threatened to confiscate all my books. I was sixteen
years old and, according to her, I wasn't concentrating enough on school work
and piano practice (there may have been some truth to that, but that is entirely
beside the point). I couldn't understand her position at all. I was reading too
much? (A real rebel, huh?)

But I came home from school one day and my bookshelves were empty. All my
books were gone, even the picture books!

For two weeks, I scoured the house searching for my abducted friends. And
when I found them, well, I decided that was something Mum didn't need to know.
My books were my trusted companions; they contained worlds and characters I
could visit anytime I needed my spirits lifted. I hadn't understood how
important books were to me until they were taken away.

When I was at uni, I realised I wanted my studies to have more to do with
fiction, rather than just having to read prescribed books to research the next
essay. So I transferred to Homesglen to do their Professional Writing and
Editing course. It didn't take long for me to realise that I wasn't going to be
a writer, but I still wanted very much to be around books.

I applied for job after job, and finally got my start with the A.M.E.B. as
an editorial assistant. From there, I went to Macmillan Education and was a
publishing assistant for three and a half years (I discovered that my love for
books does not extend to secondary school text books). I was ready for a new
job, a new challenge. My friend, who was also job hunting, was scouring
the advertisements in the Weekly Book Newsletter and when she saw the ad for
Publishing Operations Manager at Allen & Unwin she emailed it my way. I
hesitated only long enough to ensure there were no spelling or grammatical
errors in my CV. I really wanted this job.

When I got the call from Liz
Bray asking me in for an interview with her and Eva Mills, I tried not to sound
too keen when I said yes. And then I did a little happy dance.

I
practiced for the interview. I'm not kidding. My best friend works in HR (handy)
so we did mock interviews. Truly. Mainly to lessen my chances of me freezing up
when asked, 'So, tell us a bit about yourself.' (Yes, at a different job
interview, I didn't have an answer prepared for that. The silence was a little
awkward, but really, how do you answer that question? It's so general. Is it so
hard to be specific - what exactly do prospective employers want to know about
me?!)

Anyway, this time I was prepared for that particular question... and Liz and Eva didn't ask it
(thank goodness!). They both made me feel completely relaxed, and when I left
the office, I realised I'd even enjoyed the interview (that was a first). I also
knew that I really, really wanted the job.

A week later I was back for
another interview, this time with Erica Wagner (she didn't ask me that question
either - I was loving this place even more). She was very welcoming, and it
confirmed my sense of 'rightness' about the job. And then there was the final hurdle: 'the test' with the then Publishing
Operations Manager who was leaving to study law. Could I follow her instructions
to create the Editor Workload Report in Excel?

In April, I'll have been
with Allen & Unwin for three years (OMG) and the Editor Workload Report is
only one of the many duties I do to keep all our systems running smoothly and
wrangle the publishers and editors to keep all the books on track. One of the
great perks of this position is that I know when the manuscripts will be
delivered. So if I can't wait to read the next book in an exciting series and I
know the manuscript is in-house, well... let's just say I'm really looking
forward to the delivery of the next title in the
Elementals series.

The most challenging thing about this job: my office is surrounded by books
and every day I have to fight the urge to simply read. NEVER start reading Sea Hearts during your lunch break.

You will spend the rest of your day wanting to know what happens next, and
that will torment you until 5.30-6 pm when you can pick up the book again, and
then you'll trip over your feet because you'll be so busy reading while walking
to the station, that you won't see the slight bump in the footpath, and then
you'll stay up all night to finish it... and I think I understand why my mother
confiscated my books (I'm not saying she was right).